2014 Edmonton Oilers prospects: #19 Laurent Brossoit

For three years fans of the Edmonton Oil Kings watched a young goaltending prospect begin to blossom before our eyes. Laurent Brossoit entered the team picture in 2010-11 just as the Oil Kings under new head coach Derek Laxdal began their rapid rise from the dregs of the WHL standings to the top of the league, a process that took just two years. After the first of those seasons, Brossoit was tabbed by the Calgary Flames of all teams, who took a sixth-round flyer on a young backup who posted an .887 save percentage in part-time duty.

Laurent Brossoit reflects on one of his 119 wins as an Edmonton Oil King.

That draft pick started looking good right away. Brossoit seized the crease of the up-and-coming Oil Kings, backstopping the team to first place overall, then leading them to the WHL title, earning playoff MVP honours in the process with a sustained display of outstanding netminding. He came back with another strong season and deep playoff run the following year. But with every chant of “L.B.! L.B.!” that went up at Rexall Place over those seasons, came back an echo that sounded suspiciously like “He’s a Flame, dang it!”

Oilers scouts and management obviously caught a few eyesful of the guy over his last two years in Edmonton. After he debuted in the Calgary system as a pro this past fall and posted a 1.000 (!) save percentage in four appearances against two different Oilers affiliates, they’d apparently seen enough. In early November the trigger was pulled on the trade that brought the rights to Brossoit and Roman Horak to Edmonton, at what seemed the steep price of Ladislav Smid and prospect goalie Olivier Roy. While some speculated that the move of Smid was a salary dump — an angle supported bythis recent piece from Travis Yost of The Sporting News (containing interesting snippets on both Smid and Matt Hendricks) — others absolutely hated the deal that saw just the one NHL player being moved. Whatever the motivation, the upshot was the Oilers wound up with Brossoit, who at this moment ranks as the top netminding prospect in the system, at least according to Cult of Hockey soothsayers. We have him at #19 overall, ahead of #22 Zach Nagelvoort, #28 Frans Tuohimaa, and long shots Tyler Bunz and Keven Bouchard.

Bouchard is an interesting comparison, a young back-up who posted an .887 save percentage in part-time duty who was tabbed by the Oilers with a seventh round flyer. Sound familiar? His situation, stats, and draft number were all pretty much the same as Brossoit’s in 2011. But to L.B.’s credit, he made those three years count in a big way to get a leg up on the competition, or what passes for same in Oil Country.

Brossoit just turned 21 a few months ago, but he has amassed a large amount of experience in a short time. Over the past three seasons — his final two years of junior and his first as a pro — the promising netminder has taken the crease no fewer than 220 times, emerging as the winner in over 70% of his decisions.

The red and blue rectangles simply reference his time as Flames’ property, then Oilers’. Brossoit’s playoff résumé is even more sparkling, with big numbers under both the games played and save percentage columns, not exactly a mutually exclusive proposition:

Including 4 Memorial Cup appearances (not shown), that’s a staggering 62 postseason games over three years, including 11 playoff rounds (9 series wins). Compare and contrast the NHL leaders in playoff games played over that same span: 1) Jonathan Quick 64; 2. Henrik Lundqvist 57; 3. Corey Crawford 48; 4. Tuukka Rask 34; 5. Martin Brodeur 24. Note how quickly those numbers peter out: just the elite see significant amounts of playoff action over a group of seasons. Whether “elite’ refers to the goaltender in question, his team, or some combination of the two, I will leave as an exercise for the reader.

Suffice to say in Laurent Brossoit’s case, he was an outstanding goalie on an outstanding team, albeit in a significantly lower league. To some extent he repeated that success in Bakersfield on a middling club. He posted a 24-9-2 W-L-O record on a squad that went 12-21-4 when L.B. wasn’t the goalie of record, then rang up 10 more wins in a nice postseason run before running into league super power Alaska Aces in the semis. We covered Broissoit’s peripatetic pro debut in considerable detail after it finally wound down in late May so won’t dwell on it again here, other than noting that he struggled at the AHL level in a handful of brief trials this past season

Is that early lack of AHL success a cause for concern? Ask me again in a year. For now, I’ll simply point out that many NHL goaltenders got their start two rungs down the ladder. Of the 69 goalies who played 10 or more NHL games this past season, no fewer than 16 have played at least double digit games in the lower loop during their development years. It’s an interesting list, here sorted by ECHL Sv%:

Not exactly your A-list of goalies: the high draft picks largely avoided having to play at this level, as did many of the European imports. This group includes plenty of underdogs who have collectively proven that one viable path to the big leagues involves getting some at-bats at Double A, and hitting at least .900 in the process! Interesting name right at the top, and Brossoit (listed prematurely, for illustrative purposes) shows well here, even as the NHL side of his entry is a blank page to this point.

Expectations for 2014-15: Brossoit’s next goal should be to never play another ECHL game; the vast majority of these guys played just one season at that level, as can be gleaned from the Age column. The top goaltending prospect in the system projects to the #4 spot on the depth chart, behind only veterans Ben Scrivens, Viktor Fasth, and Richard Bachman. His first challenge is to consolidate that spot by seizing the backup job in Oklahoma City and putting an end to the revolving door that just kept on cycling all year long in 2013-14. Ideally he plays well enough to start nipping at Bachman’s heels and earning significant playing time. He’s used to being the go-to guy, and becoming one at the AHL level is the next step.

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